U.s. Detains Russian Oil Tanker

Iraq Accused Of Smuggling

February 04, 2000|By John Diamond, Washington Bureau.

WASHINGTON — A U.S.-led force placed a Russian-flagged tanker in quarantine Thursday on suspicion that it was exporting oil from Iraq, part of a dramatic increase in Iraqi shipments in defiance of an international embargo.

Because the blockade is easily evaded, Iraq, with the help of rogue tankers, has doubled its illegal exports of oil in the past two years, taking advantage of rising petroleum prices and raising an estimated $25 million per month, State Department officials said. The administration is concerned that Iraq is spending the money on conventional weaponry and components for weapons of mass destruction.

The seizure of the Russian-flagged ship Wednesday and the decision by the international embargo force to detain the vessel Thursday prompted a sharp response from Moscow, which insisted the oil came from Iran. U.S. officials said they have ample evidence the shipment came from Iraq.

The exports defy a 9-year-old UN embargo and occur under the nose of an American-led naval blockade that is powerless to seize ships steaming within the 12-mile territorial waters of Iraq or its Persian Gulf neighbors. However, the Russian-flagged tanker broke from the usual pattern and steamed into international waters where it could be stopped by two U.S. warships.

The seizure came after U.S. spy satellites and reconnaissance planes tracked the course of the Russian ship for nearly a month, including its departure from the Iraqi oil port of Basra. During that time, U.S. officials in Washington and Moscow repeatedly voiced their concern to Russian officials. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright raised the issue during her just-completed trip to Moscow, according to a knowledgeable U.S. official.

U.S. Navy Cmdr. Jeff Gradeck, spokesman for the multinational maritime interception force that has been enforcing the oil embargo, said there is "a lot of evidence" that the refined "gasoil" in the ship's hold is of Iraqi origin. "The ship was tracked from when it left Iraqi waters because it was suspected," Gradeck said.

The Russian government insisted that the cargo aboard the tanker, the Volga-Neft-147, was of Iranian origin, and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vasily Sredin was quoted by Russia's Interfax news agency as demanding that the ship be immediately released. He said Russia had expressed its "puzzlement" to the United States and to the United Arab Emirates, the country closest to the point just outside the Strait of Hormuz, where the seizure took place.

Moscow also disavowed any involvement in smuggling and has promised to investigate whether the private Russian firm that owns the ship was involved in smuggling.

In the meantime, Iraq is dramatically increasing its illegal oil income, becoming bolder in its smuggling operations as oil prices have risen in recent months, according to U.S. officials. In 1998, Iraqi illegal oil exports averaged about 50,000 barrels per day; today, the export rate is 100,000 barrels per day, according to State Department spokesman James Foley. Because rogue tankers maneuver inside territorial waters, only a tiny fraction of that total export has been halted at sea by U.S. and allied warships.

The result is a stream of revenue that greatly worries U.S. intelligence officials, who warn that while they can closely track weapons development in Iraq, such as missile tests or a major nuclear program, it is much harder to catch Iraq buying the weapons and components it needs on the black market.

"Given that Iraqi missile development efforts are continuing, we think that it too could develop an ICBM--especially with foreign assistance--sometime in the next decade," CIA Director George Tenet told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.

Along with Iran and North Korea, Iraq is investing its scarce resources to develop longer-range missiles. It also is trying to re-establish nuclear- and chemical-weapons programs cut short by its defeat at the hands of a U.S.-led coalition in the 1991 Persian Gulf war. As a result of that war, Iraq's military was cut roughly by half, and Iraq's military options remain "limited," Tenet said.

The intelligence chief said Iraq retains a military force capable of threatening its neighbors, if not defeating a U.S. force. Further, Iraq's continued spending on weapons, despite the country's severe economic difficulties, indicates the high priority Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein places on weapons of mass destruction, Tenet said.

Longer-range missiles in the hands of Iraq or other "rogue states," Tenet said, "complicate and increase the cost of U.S. planning and intervention, enhance deterrence, build prestige and improve their abilities to engage in coercive diplomacy."